A not-so tall tale of Uranus and Saturn

by Erik M Roth, Shamanic Astrologer

Most of us are familiar with the term, “mid-life crises”, especially if we are in the early-to-middle 40s or have passed through beyond age 50.  But there are notices we receive in our early adulthood that can throw us asunder with what we believe is our path.  The Universe likes to remind us that no matter how well we may plan our life, unexpected rifts form to knock us sideways.  Our path or vision then collapses no matter how tight we may want to hold onto it.

Having recently experienced some potent planetary cycles that everyone experiences in their early-to-mid 40s, I’ve gained more perspective on the combination of certain influences and intents that these planets have on our lives.   This mid-life passage, as Jungian psychologists term, has some of its roots dug deeply during our time when we first technically become adults between 19 and 22 years of age.  For most of us, it’s our first foray into real maturity and responsibility in the world outside our parent’s home.  For some, it is a time to go to college and choose our educational and career path and for others it’s a jump into the daily grind of work.  And still for others, we don’t feel ready to jump into adulthood, perhaps biding our time until the pressures of life (and parents) force us to choose something beyond staying home.  For me, it was a combination of all of the above.

At 20 years of age, Uranus came into my life in a big way.  It was in the late winter of 1992 that my father invited me to lunch one Saturday.   Since he never does anything quite formal like that, I knew something was up.  He delivered news to me that shook up my path and vision for my life.  At the time, I was finishing up my first year as an electronic engineering student at a trade school and had dreams of getting a Master’s degree in engineering and potentially going beyond.  In fact, there was a part of me that wanted to be a scientist-engineer.  My parents had promised to support me through my first 4-years of education to obtain a Bachelor’s degree.  But the lunch with my father threw that out the window.  My family was moving out of Los Angeles and north to Palmdale, out in the desert sprawl.  At that time, I had no means of getting to school from that far away nor getting home.  Everything seemed to collapse on that day when it came to my dreams.

Uranus square Uranus – February 1992 to January 1993

This cycle can take place in a person’s life anytime between age 19 and 22

Saturn Square Saturn – May 1993 to March 1994

This cycle can take place in a person’s life anytime around age 20 to 22

Everyone in my family knew that a home was being purchased in Palmdale, except me.  They knew for more than a month or so.  It was a secret kept because they knew how it would impact me.  My parents had assumed I would find my own way when it came to having a roof over my head.  After a bit of anger through wounding, my parents assisted my in getting a used car as I chose to get a job.  I tried to manage going to school and working full time (prior to moving to Palmdale), thinking I could salvage the education in some way.  But the pressure and stress was too much for me to sustain.  I had to quit the technical college at the beginning of the second year and moved with the rest of my family to Palmdale.

Uranus had come in like a rift and I got sucked into another world.  I went “kicking and screaming” as the adage goes.  I had been in a few cycles (prior to and during the Uranus cycle) surrounding getting clues to my future and jumping into the vision of who I thought I was.  I wasn’t aware of astrology much at that age nor was I aware of the spiritual and celestial realms at that time either.  Uranus is a planet in which can knock on our doors at unexpected times, accelerating us to our future that can be uncomfortable, giving us the feeling of being ungrounded, taking us to the land of the irrational but also full of novelty and breakthroughs.  If one of the outer planets in astrology symbolizes “change”, it is Uranus.  And at that age, the orbit of Uranus is one-quarter of the way (from the perspective of being on Earth aka geocentric) in the sky and hence our 2D astrology charts.   It’s a big-deal of a cycle and generally takes precedent over many other cycles that may be swirling about.

URANUS CYCLE/INITIATION – a time to expect the unexpected and great novelty in one’s life.  It is also a time of epiphanies, acceleration of path and sudden, abrupt events to take a person where they’ve never gone before.

Shortly after the Uranus square Uranus cycle ended (in early 1993), Saturn came back into my life.  At that time, I was still employed at a retail job an hour away but felt unsteady in where I was going in life.  The Saturn cycle, which on the Shamanic Timeline takes place about every 7 1/3 years was three-quarters of the way to our first Saturn Return (when Saturn returns back to the point it was at when a person was born, which takes place every 29-30 years).  This Saturn square Saturn cycle is another important marker in early adulthood, but comes with an entirely different set of instructions and intent.

It was during that time (between age 21 and 22 in May 1993-March 1994) that helped me understand the priorities in my life.  In combination with a Jupiter cycle (expansion), I was able to see beyond the current “working for peanuts” retail job-train and know my talents and skills actually lied elsewhere.  What I was able to see what that I enjoyed to write and had an above-average talent at creative writing.  I took a course in writing during that time and felt grounded in what I could do with it, especially in the fact that no one could take it away from away as an employer could take away a job or exercised certain controls over a person because they needed the job.  I had planted the seeds for the future, unbeknownst to me as to how I would use that skill many years in the future.

SATURN CYCLE/INITIATION – Getting real with one’s life applies heavily to this cycle.  Saturn is also about growth through limits and boundaries and investing one’s time, money and energy into their life purpose.  It is a time to plant the seeds of one’s future and commit to priorities that are in harmony with our life.

The intent of a Saturn cycle in Shamanic Astrology is to give us the opportunity to invest in ourselves with time, money and energy.  All the stuff that deals with reality, resources, commitments, results, utilizing our skills, providing for ourselves (and family), planning for our future and growth through limits and boundaries.  Before the Saturn cycle, I had succumbed to the fallout of the change in a way I resisted instead of embracing it.  Saturn gave me the chance to dig into the resources of my being and apply it in way that can produce results.   As one can see, this is a very different initiation than that of Uranus.  By the end of the Saturn initiation (cycle) I knew that I could have a future beyond the retail jobs I had worked thus far.  I didn’t know how long it would take, but it gave me my first true dose of confidence as an adult.

Forward to the Mid-Life Passage

Over 20 years have passed since that time.  We always hope that a bit of wisdom and understanding of life will help us navigate the years and while they generally do, we still run into those unexpected moments that threaten to tear down our world and what we believe to be our path in life.  We conjure visions of what we want to manifest and at times work hard to bring those visions into reality.  We long for that day when we can say “I’ve arrived!”.  But do we ever truly “arrive”?

In 2015, I was experiencing the next duo-set of Saturn and Uranus initiations.  Only this time, they were taking place at the same time!  Of course, by that time, the cosmos had taken me under its wing to practice Shamanic Astrology.  While I did feel drawn to it, I didn’t necessarily choose to become a Shamanic Astrologer, the path chose me in a sense.  So while I knew the ins and outs of Uranus and Saturn, we can never be 100% prepared for what we will encounter in these cycles, no matter how much we might think we are experts or how others might think we are experts in astrology.  The initiations show that even astrologers are not immune to the forces of what they may forecast in their life.

While at the beginning of 2015, I was in the midst of my Uranus opposition (meaning Uranus was now halfway around the circle or chart since I was born), Saturn moved into its own opposition with itself (meaning Saturn was now completing 1 ½ turns around the circuit since birth).  While this combination doesn’t happen to everyone (other times, the Uranus cycle finishes before the Saturn cycle begins), it is showing up more and more for many of us.  The question before I entered that combination was that how can I utilize my skills and resources to further my purpose and path while going through abrupt shifts that may cut me off from what I believed I wanted.

During this past Saturn-Uranus initiation combo I decided to initiate a dream I had of living and working in both Portland and Tucson.  I had attempted to manifest this dream without any expectations.  But even with that intention, there were still some residual expectations that came up for me (I have come to believe that we can never truly eliminate expectations).  The plan was to live and work in Tucson during the fall and winter and be in Portland during the spring and summer.  Since I had what I thought was part of my life down in the Sonoran Desert, I considered it of minimal risk to my path and thought it would strengthen my pursuit of having 2 cities as my home and workplace.  The result was that it didn’t turn out the way I had expected or even close to that measure/intent.

After the initial work for the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School (SAMS) in October of 2015, I had run into a wall when it came to living my dream.   My living space, social climate and mypersonal life was essentially sacrificed to stay down there for the 6 months.  I had no idea that would happen nor was I fully prepared for that.  I came to realize how important it was to have a balance in work/life.  I had lived in Tucson prior to that (between 2010-2012) when I was still developing my astrological practice so living and working there wasn’t an unknown.  At the time, I did develop many varying business and personal relationships.  But it was the absence of those relationships during the recent stint in Tucson that had my attention.  It was a surprise and it set me up to experience a “cleansing” of sorts and “letting go” of what was not meant to be.

When we are in a major Saturn initiation, we will get feedback on the major decisions of our life.  That feedback is truth whether or not plans will work.  The plan to rotate back and forth from Portland to Tucson did not work, or at least when it came to timing.  I understood that I was unconsciously running toward a fantasy that wasn’t meant to work at that time.  Perhaps, it was too soon? Because I was also being initiated by Pluto (Underworld initiator of facing fears, death/rebirth and empowerment) at the time, it colored my experience with darker colors, but also deeper, richer and highly potent in nature.  Saturn gave me the space to continue to participate in my daily life while at the same time experiencing the ripping apart of my assemblage point (where I was rooted in idea and form) from both Uranus and Pluto.  It was not meant to be easy to navigate those cycles.

Saturn Opposition to Saturn – January 2016 to November 2016

This cycle can take place in a person’s life anytime between age 40 and 44

Uranus Opposition to Uranus – June 2014 to February 2016

This cycle can take place in a person’s life anytime between age 42 to 44

Toward the end of my time in Tucson, all the signs were pointing back to Portland in a big way.  I was getting calls for visits and appointments.  But more than that, the limits and boundaries that I had placed upon myself had crumbled away.  The channels and roads opened more lucid than they were in many years and I was ready, motivated and excited to engage 100% in the work that had chosen me.  Uranus and Saturn working together (with Pluto’s help), while painful and upsetting at times brought forth a new vibration from within my core that craved to see the light of day.  As soon as I thought I had something solid (Saturn), it would be shifted elsewhere, sending me sideways like some magnetic anomaly spinning the arrow of a compass in random ways (Uranus).

My Saturn Opposition ended this past November and my Uranus Opposition ended this past February.  The aftermath of those cycles collaborating left me feeling more clear-headed and ready to apply what I learned during that time.  All planetary initiations are neither “good” nor “bad”.  It simply is our perception (morals, principles, experiences, culture, etc.) while being initiated where we may judge something in the good/bad polarity notion.  If we resist the initiations, we are in essence resisting our own growth and evolution as souls living and participating as humans on this planet.

One of the lessons of the Saturn/Uranus combination I learned more fully was not becoming overly attached to the results of our plans.  However, if certain decisions produce lasting beneficial results, then we know we can carry onward with it, but because of Uranus’ presence in our lives it will show up in manner we are likely no accustomed to seeing or feeling.  It is recommended to trust in the process that it is taking us to the place we are meant to go, continuing our journey to enter into wholeness and authenticity.